121 - The war within my heart

I lay in the tub with my eyes closed, while she sat beside me, soaking her graceful feet. I did not have to see them, knowing their grace in my skin, my fingers, my lips. What is she to me? I asked myself. The one who calls me omores, as if she never stamped away with two of our children? Or the one who is capable of spitting on me for having a Committee? What am I to her? The one she loves for changing the world, or the one she hates for thinking she’s stupid, though I don’t?

As I’d run like a lunatic down the aqueduct, it had been with the thought that everything was solved now; but as I lay here running over in my mind her asking me whether I’d been trying to drive her away to save the twins, and not asking herself the same, I realized I’d been something of a starry-eyed fool.

So things cannot be perfect between us, I told myself; they are still good. You ask too much. “Cheng,” she said, just then. She slid in beside me again. I told myself, she yearns to be close, that’s all. Same as I do. “I need to apologize for everything I said to you before I left.”

I spoke my thought, not knowing what else to say. “No, you don’t. Just the one.”

“I’m sorry,” she sighed. “I... have no excuses... no real explanation... temper is no excuse for trying that hard to hurt you.” Does she think she knows which one, and that’s why she’s not asking? I might never know; she didn’t like to be pressed on such things, and we were trying to make peace. It was still as deep an admission as she’d ever made; she was on the edge of tears. “What can I do, to make it right?”

I looked into her eyes. “Niku… can you do this: explain why you ever want to hurt me at all? Why? I don’t understand it. We are husband and wife; we are supposed to love each other, not hurt each other.”

“I keep thinking you are trying to hurt me,” she said. “I strike when I feel struck.”

“But why?” I said. “Why do you think that? What do I do? Am I so vicious? Have I ever really done you wrong? Have I looked down my nose or turned away when you needed me? Have I slighted you? Have I made your life difficult? You say all the time you think I’m calling you stupid—why? I don’t think that; why would I say it? Have you ever heard someone say, ‘Chevenga said behind your back, you’re stupid?’ Do I not ask your advice enough? Have I not assigned you enough responsibility? Do I put on airs, as if I’m more intelligent that I am? You strike when you feel struck; how have I struck you?”

“You are not vicious,” she said. Oh well, that’s a relief to know, part of me spat. “At worst I think you don’t understand some things… what they mean to me. I feel slighted sometimes… it’s as if there assumptions behind the way you speak to me.”

I wish I could understand what in the garden orbicular you’re talking about, I thought. Why don’t I? “What assumptions?”

“I know your shadow-father comes first; I understand that. Your country… comes first.”

My country I didn’t argue about; semana kra. And yet I had risked so much to buck them to marry her. But, my shadow-father again… she hadn’t even seemed to notice his change. “Niku, I struck him the blow of shame and threw him out of the darya semanakraseyeni for what he did to you. Was that not enough? What should I have done? Flogged him? Charged him? Worse?”

“No, no, no!” she said. “You did the right thing.”

“Why do you think he comes first? Why do you think I love him more than I love you? Why is it impossible, in your mind, for me to love both equally?

“It isn’t; you can. I… I’m not sure I can put words on it.” Her voice quivered, a little; I had been trying to ask what I’d asked gently, and wondered if I had failed. “The two of you are locked together in a way... sometimes... that shuts everyone else out... I think...”

“When have I shut you out?”

She closed her eyes, as if to shut me out. “Chevenga… I am thinking… maybe the war within my heart has nothing to do with you. I’m no psych; I don’t know. I will go back to Surya, if he’ll take me, and see what he can tell me.”

I remembered her saying that she’d spoken to him about leaving me before speaking to me. You are already his client, I wanted to say. She ducked her head under the water, flattening her hair, came up and knifed her body smoothly out as a person does who grew up by a sea that is warm all year. She was dark-tanned, turned half-Srian, by the Ibresian sun; the thatch of hair between her legs shone with wetness. My desire for her and my anger for what she’d said about the Committee crashed together in the core of me.

I suddenly felt dog-tired all over, the exhaustion of cares rather than honest work. I closed my eyes, and she brushed my wet, too-long forecurls out of my eyes with her fingers, making me stare at her. “I don’t ever want to hurt you or make your life harder, ever again,” she said softly. “Lord Friend hear me.”

But no second Fire come, I thought. And you are swearing you don’t want to, not that you won’t. It was an oath that left plenty of leeway, in more than one way. This is as good as it gets, I told myself. Breathe in acceptance. She was the only one who would stay with me. “I know,” I said.

So much I had yearned for her to come home, and now I wanted to be alone. “The best way right now is... to leave me to it,” I said. “I have Surya, I have Shaina and Etana and my mother; I can lean on them.” I have Skorsas; in some ways he’s by far the best to lean on. But she would not want to hear that. Alone was not an option, of course. Someone without a war in their heart, then. “I know you’d say the same of me, because you have, but... you don’t know how not to do those things that hurt.”

“I will just have to learn fast,” she said, determinedly.

If there was anyone who could enable her to do that, it was Surya. I could take hope in that. He might call me in; next time I saw him, I’d tell him I was willing, in case he wanted to. I heaved myself out of the bath; I should go back up to the maesa Virani-e. She wanted to come with me and take the night shift, but I told her that Surya wanted whoever did that to stay awake. “You just came off a hard flight,” I said. “And the bed in the Independent is much better anyway.” Neither of us were ready to sleep together, even if that just meant sleep. She stayed, and I made the climb with Skorsas.

They changed the times, splitting the day into four rather than three, so she was up again in the afternoon of the next day. “Chevenga, I want to ask you something,” she said, as soon as we’d hugged and were alone again. “What does it mean… your shadow-father said something about signing something, and that we’d have to talk to someone… signing on the certificate…”

Kyash. I didn’t swear him, or anyone else, to silence. Now I’m fikked. “Signing consideration?” I said.

“Yes, that’s it—those are the words he used. Omores, what does that mean?”

“It’s Yeoli law,” I said, stumbling over my tongue and bracing myself for the firestorm at once. “It’s when a couple… I mean, one person in a couple… thinks it might be best that they part ways. What happens next… by the law… is the spouses speak together, with another person—it should be a psyche-healer or senahera who doesn’t know anyone in the marriage—to try to settle things. You have to try a certain number of times before giving up. Or I could strike out my signature. Except that I can’t.”

“Why not?” Her voice stayed quiet. I stayed braced.

“Because I’m legally incompetent. I can’t strike it out and nor can we go for those talks, until the ruling is changed on that. That’s why I didn’t tell you; because I’d be able to do nothing.”

“I guess you did it… right after,” she said, very softly. Her eyes had gone red. “After some of the things I said…”

“Yes… I had no idea I was going to remember my stream-test, and so the main bone of contention between us would be gone. Or that I’d be ruled incompetent. I meant to take what you said… seriously.”

Tears spilled down her cheeks, and she threw her hands over her face. This wasn’t the storm I’d expected; it was worse, spearing me through the heart like a blade. More than anything I wanted to fling my arms around her, take her head into my neck, kiss away her tears, tell her I’d strike it out the moment I could and everything would be well. But everything was not well.

I did say, “Niku, it doesn’t mean you’ve lost me. We will choose, as always.” She looked at me with naked desperation to fling her arms around me, which she resisted.

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